Is there any way to improve my relationship with my parents?

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Hi there,

I've officially moved out of home, and have been living at university in Norwich for the last year. Since then, my confidence and social abilities/esteem issues have greatly been resolved, I've become incredibly socially active, and all in all am loving the new, improved me.

However, yesterday I got a Skype call from my Mum. We were talking about random, trivial things, and then all of a sudden she cut me off-mid-conversation before I could properly begin speaking to her, before beginning a barrage of questions about the house I'm living in next year. Most of this was stuff I already knew about and was sorting, but every time I pointed out that I was doing this or that thing right, she only gave worried, distrustful grunts before quickly moving onto the next topic. At one point she asked if the people I was living with still actually wanted to share with me. When I asked questions of my own/asked her to justify what she'd said, she quickly became irritated. All in all, the conversation left me feeling anxious and upset, a feeling which I have not had since been away from home on the whole.

It seems that every time I return home, all the confidence/social abilities I learn get thrown out the window. I accept that I'm messy and unco-oridinated, but my parents get incredibly frustrated by this, and scold me like a child for doing things wrong/get ridiculously angry over slight mistakes. I feel like I'm treading over eggshells, anxious for the next argument, and my self-esteem suffers as a result.

Don't get me wrong, I love my parents, and I owe half of the things I've achieved in to them. I honestly don't want to seem like a whining brat, but it does seem hard to explain. My mum tends to be easily fired up, and although I have a much better relationship with my dad, he often seems distant, and unwilling to talk to me properly unless I give him the right signs. I've tried explaining to them about being on the Autism Spectrum/having Aspergers, but every time I do, they don't want to hear about it/get uncomfortable and irritated with me discussing it with them.

Is there anything I can do, i.e. tidying my room, acting independently, that will improve the relationship I have with them?

My only advice is to accept them and love them for who they are...whether they ever change or not. If you quibble over how they fail you, you will always be stressed over them.

I can't believe someone else has the same issue.

Here's what happened to me, and I'm guessing your story is similar. I went to college and I essentially was forced into social situations. It was quite difficult at first. A lot of people thought I was weird or didn't like me. But they weren't mean to me like in high school. I could find friends that I could be myself with. These interactions gave me a lot of practice. Very quickly I felt more "normal" and could function decently in many social situations. You know that thing called empathy everyone always told you you sucked at? It's coming, and that's why you probably feel like a new person. One thing I figure out is that you can work on and try to change anything you want about yourself. You are still young. In fact, I'm 22, and my brain feels like its changing faster than it did in high school. Most people don't get the opportunity to redefine themselves. The experience will set you apart from others as you develop intrapersonal skills most people never needed. Just be careful. You will regress to your old self if you let yourself.

Now think about your parents. They spent 18 years trying to figure out how to best communicate to you. It was no easy task. You didn't realize it then, but the interactions you had with your parents were far from normal. They were likely one-sided and quite unpleasant for both of you. Now you can't just expect them to see you as a new person overnight. It took a while for me to realize that. You can't show them over the phone easily, but I suggest you simply tell them you don't like how they are talking "at you." Give them a phone call twice a week, and realize you don't even have to think about your relationship with them at other times. Then, when you see them in person, you can show them. Put on new clothes. take care of your appearance, and do your best to talk to them like you would your friends. Expect them to be uncomfortable with it. They'll feel a lot of emotion, but they WILL be happy to know you in this new way.

I made a lot of assumptions about your situation, so please don't take offense if I made any judgments. I'm definitely curious if you feel the same way I did.

I think it's only natural for parents to stress about their children who are still fairly recently out of the nest. Especially, if they know their child has had some social difficulties in the past. Heck, I'm 41 and my mother still stresses over me. I've pretty much have had to take the reins and tell my mother I'm an adult, I'll handle it. I've also had to limit how much contact I have with her. This has actually improved the nature of our interactions. She seems to be happier to see me and the tone of our conversations is lighter. Any time I've had "too much" contact with my parents it's gotten ugly. Unfortunately, when I got divorced my son and I had to move in with them until I could get back on my feet and it didn't take long for the same old issues to crop up.

Thanks everyone for the responses! Lazyman, you were right on most accounts, apart from my lack of empathy, I suppose. I'm very extroverted, so if I don't see people I get quite depressed, but at the same time I can't handle invasions of personal space and find it hard to communicate what I'm feeling to people. It's more that I'm learning the rules and how to think and feel like I would in other people's positions. Once again I must stress that my folks are great, but I think that I need to prove to them that I've properly grown up so they'll appreciate that Probably doesn't help that I want to be a writer, so the career plan's a little sketchy at best :S

This is the best advice I can give too. My father is never going to change and he's never going to be the perfect dad but he's the only one I have. I often have that same feeling of treading on eggshells with him as the OP does because he gets angry with me randomly and often brings up the same old topics which I have asked him not to bring up and which always result in an argument between us. He didn't give my mum much in the way of money to pay for my upbringing and was an alcoholic for most of his life (he stopped now at least). I used to be angry with him but I have realised he's just kinda crap at life; I often suspect he has AS as well. We're probably more similar than I would like to admit although I am a lot more self-critical and capable of change.

So, despite this I try to accept him and have as good a relationship with him as possible. He will never change but he's still my dad and he never actively did anything to harm me, any problems he caused for me were purely through incompetence rather than malice. Other people had much, much worse upbringings and relationships with their parents than I did so I try to count myself lucky and accept him for what he is. The alternative would be to cut him out of my life which I don't want to do, although I realise that other people might have had much worse upbringings and may be so affected by their relationship with their parents that cutting them off might be precisely what they need to do. The OP's situation doesn't sound like one of those though.